Lesson of the day: don't be a pompous windbag
One of the things that I was totally surprised with when I started working with large organizations as a trainer was that their training staff had different ideas as to what makes for a solid, qualified and standardized presentation. There I was, showing them some of the materials, and I get back a "this needs some work" or "this wouldn't fly here".
That is -the process is so ingrained in every part of the procedure that even things which are supposed to be customizable and flexible like presentations (heck, some lectures I've seen don't even have powerpoint files, or just one slide, and they rocked) gets "standardized".
I was too quick to react. I let my senses take hold of me and began sort of an argument over how no one should ever tell anyone else which slides work, which don't and all these sorts of things. If I had just sat down and thought for 5 minutes over it, I would have figured out that
- If making a few changes to the slide is what makes them happy - do it. It's their money
- If what you're saying is really so important you can always "black out" the screen by pressing "B" or "W" mid way so people listen to you, and not read the slide behind you.
- You just might learn something, you pompous windbag, Roy.
They handed me a format of presentations they used before and I looked at it. It didn't look half bad. Certainly, I can meet these standards and even learn something in the process.
Lesson of the day: When someone calls you out on the quality of your work - they just might be right.
That's not to say what I had until then was bad. It just means it didn't fit
that organizations' view of what training looks like. Live and learn.